Deptford
Bridge - Read more about the history connected with this
site:

THE
PEASANTS' SONG

When Adam
delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman?
When Adam delved and Eve span, Spur if thou wilt
speed,
Where was then the pride of man that now mars his
meed?

My
Good Citizens: Things will never go well in England
- no shall they ever - until all things be held in
common, and the lords are no greater masters than
ourselves - John Ball, one of the
leaders of the 1381 revolt (along with Wat Tyler,
above), who was executed in 1381

The bridge over
the River Ravensbourne at Deptford bridge has seen three
major rebellions pass over it: The first of which was the
Poll tax revolt in 1381, when Wat Tyler, the radical priest
John Ball and Jack Straw led 60,000 of people down from
Blackheath Hill across the bridge at Deptford Broadway and
up the Old Kent Road into London in 1381.13 Ball is
described by Christopher Hampton in A Radical Reader
as a "poor priest", who was preaching "his revolutionary
creed of equality" for at least 25 years before the
rebellion in 1381. In 1366, for example, he was brought
before Archbishop Langham of Canterbury and forbidden to
preach; that in 1376, an order was made for his arrest as an
excommunicated priest, and that he was imprisoned several
times. At the time of the uprising in 1381, he was in prison
in Maidstone, Kent. He was one of the earliest liberation
theologians, advocating justice for the poor. At this time,
the people of England were nothing more than serfs bonded to
the land. The Poor Laws at the time were noted for their
harshness as they divided the people into "study beggars"
and the "undeserving poor". This was the time of Norman
feudalism when England was little than a theocracy ruled by
Kings who believed they ruled by divine right of God. One of
John Ball's sermons was recorded in Froissart, Chronicles
1, pp640-641, which is reproduced in A Radical
Reader:

The killing
of Wat Tyler - court version

'TILL
EVERYTHING BE MADE COMMON'

There was
a custom in England, still kept in divers countries, that
the noblemen hath great licence over the commons, and
keepeth them in bondage: that. is to say, their tenants
were forced to labour the lord's lands, to gather and
bring home their corn, some to thresh and to fan and . .
. to make their hay, and to hew their wood and bring it
home; all these things they owe as services. And there
are more of these people in England than in any other
realm: thus the noblemen and prelates are served by them,
and especially in the county of Brendpest [Kent and
Essex], Sussetter [Sussex], and Bedford.
These unhappy people from the above countries began to
stir against their masters, because they said they were
kept in great bondage. And at the beginning of the world,
they said, there were no bondmen. Therefore they
maintained that no one ought to be bound unless he had
committed treason, as Lucifer did against God. But they
said they had done no such thing, for they were neither
angels nor spirits, but men formed in the likeness of
their lords, and asked why they should be so kept under
like beasts, which they said they would no longer suffer,
but would all be equal; and if they laboured or did
anything for their lords, they would have wages for it.
And of this opinion was a foolish priest in the county of
Kent, called John Ball, who for his rash words had been
three times in the Bishop of Canterbury's prison. For
this priest used often on Sundays after mass, when the
people were coming out of the church, to go into the
cloister and preach, and assembling the people about him,
would say this:

'My
good people, things cannot go well in England, nor
ever shall, till everything be made common, and there
are neither villeins nor gentlemen, but we shall all
be united together, and the lords shall be no greater
masters than ourselves. What have we deserved that we
should be kept thus enslaved? We are all descended
from one father and mother, Adam and Eve. What reasons
can they give to show that they are greater lords than
we, save by making us toil and labour, so that they
can spend? They are clothed in velvet and soft leather
furred with ermine, while we wear coarse cloth; they
have their wines, spices and good bread, while we have
the drawings of the chaff, and drink water. They have
handsome houses and manors, and we the pain and
travail, the rain and wind, in the fields. And it is
from our labour that they get the means to maintain
their estates. We are called their slaves, and ;f we
do not serve them readily, we are beaten. And we have
no sovereign to whom we may complain, or who will hear
us, or do us justice. Let us go to the King, he is
young, and tell him of our slavery; and tell him we
shall have it otherwise, or else we will provide a
remedy ourselves. And if we go together, all manner of
people that are now in bondage will follow us, with
the intent to be made free. And when the King sees us,
we shall have some remedy, either by justice or
otherwise.'

Thus John
Ball said on Sundays, when the people issued out of the
churches in the villages. For which many of the common
people loved him, and such as intended no good said how
he told the truth. And so they. would murmur to each
other in the fields and in the roadways, as they came
together, affirming the truth that John Ball spoke . . .
Of his words and deeds there were much people in London
informed, such as had great envy of them that were rich
and such as were noble: and then they began to speak
among them and said: 'How England was right evil governed
and how that gold and silver was taken from them by them
that were named noblemen.' So these unhappy men of London
began to rebel and assembled together, and sent word to
the foresaid countries that they should come to London
and bring their people with them, promising them how they
should find London open to receive them, and the commons
of the city to be of the same accord, saying how they
would do so much to the King, that there should not be
one bondman in all England.

The rebels had
first gathered on around the mound and ancient assembly
point known today as Whitefield's Mount. This used to be
called Wat Tyler's Mound, as this was the place where he and
other revolutionary leaders gathered to speak to the
assembled protesters. As Blackheath Common had been used for
Church revivalist meetings in the 18th century by both
Wesley and Whitefield, it was decided to rename the mound
after him.14 Gale speculates that the Wat Tyler's Mound may
have been in remote antiquity a prehistoric Gorsedd (Great
Seat). As with similar sites in London (such as Kennington
Common and Parliament Hill), people had the right to hold
public meetings.

Presumably, it
was here that other revolutionaries such as Jack Cade and
the Cornish rebel Michael Joseph also spoke. According to
Christopher Hampton writing in A Radical Reader: The
Struggle for Change in England 1381&endash;1914, Tyler
had demanded at Smithfield:

That
there should be only one bishop in England and only one
prelate, and all the lands and tenements now held by them
should be confiscated, and divided among the commons,
only reserving for them a reasonable sustenance. And he
demanded that there should be no more villeins in
England, and no serfdom or villeinage, but that all men
should be free and of one condition . . .(Anonimalle
Chronicle)

After marching
up to London and executing the Prime Minister (the
Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the rebels marched on the Strand and burnt down
the Savoy - not before throwing out the Poll Tax records
into the street and burning them.

However, Tyler
was later stabbed during a meeting with the King by William
Walworth, and later dragged to Smithfield's and executed.
Soon afterwards, Ball and Straw were also executed, and
hundreds more are believed to have been executed in the
aftermath of the rebellion. Ball's last words
were:

Fellow-citizens,
whom now a scant liberty has relieved from long
oppression, stand firm while you may, and fear nothing
for my punishment, since I would die in the cause of the
liberty we have won, if it is now my fate to die,
thinking myself happy to be able to finish my life by
such a martyrdom.

After the
rebellion was over, the rebels were told:

Oh
miserable men, hateful both to land and sea, unworthy
even to live, you ask to be put on an equality with your
lords! You should certainly have been punished with the
vilest death, if we had not determined to observe the
things which had been decreed towards your messengers.
But because you have come in the character of messengers
you shall not die at once, but shall enjoy your life that
you may truly announce our answer to your
fellows.

Take back
then this answer from the king: Serfs you were and serfs
you are; you shall remain in bondage, not such as you
have hitherto been subject to, but incomparably viler.
For so long as we live and rule by God's grace over this
kingdom we shall use our sense, our strength and our
property so to teach you, that your slavery may be an
example to posterity, and that those who live now and
hereafter, who may be like you, may always have before
their eyes and as it were in a glass, your misery and
reasons for cursing you, and the fear of doing things
like those which you have done.

Picture by
David Somerset, 1997

Wat Tyler is
only remembered by Wat Tyler Road on Blackheath Common (see
above). Walworth, however, had part of London named after
him - Walworth in South London. The knife that stabbed him
is presently in the Masonic Fishmongers Hall near Southwark
Bridge in the City of London.

Another of
Deptford's famous revolutionaries was Thomas Whyche, the
parish priest who was burnt at the stake in 1362 for being a
Lollard - these were priests whose only crime was often that
they had translated the Bible into common English. He is
remembered in a plaque in Deptford Church.

The struggle
for democracy in Britain began with Wat Tyler's revolt in
1381 - it would take almost 500 years for the people to gain
the right to vote - a process which begun in 1832 and was
only completed in 1928 when - thanks to the collective
efforts of the Chartists and the Suffragettes - when women
and men were fully franchised. However, despite centuries of
struggle, Britain is still without an elected head of state,
a written constitution or a proper Bill of Rights.